


Counting Stars

by ByeByeLove



Series: Fragile [1]
Category: British Actor RPF, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Developing Relationship, First Time, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 08:29:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1462621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ByeByeLove/pseuds/ByeByeLove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He falls from the grace of the courts easily and early.</p><p>He falls, down, down, down the abyss.</p><p>They fall into bed together, finally.</p><p>He falls hard, so hard for Tom.</p><p>Every time he's fallen, it has been terrifying, terrifying and awful and spectacular and magnificent and flawlessly blinding.</p><p>But this time?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting Stars

**Author's Note:**

> This was an unintended sequel to Human.
> 
> Except that it's more a prequel.
> 
> Anyway, this is that prequel I never meant to write.
> 
> And I'm thinking, and I don't know why I'm thinking this, but I am, that there will be one more part.
> 
> Enjoy, I hope.

Loki never wanted to be a cruel god.

But in the grand scheme of things, he thinks, that he was always meant to be.

*

He was prone to lies, because deception was so very enjoyable and being honest was so very boring.

He was prone to mischief, because tricks were fun and being clever was far better than being dull and normal.

He was prone to destruction, because chaos and pandemonium were things that made his heart race and his fingers tingle and his seiðr spark life and fire in his veins and he couldn’t breathe and he felt, he felt, _alive_.

*

The first time Loki falls, he falls from the grace of the courts easily and early.

He liked the things that he could do with his seiðr and his own mind, things that others could never conceive of.

He enjoyed the easy, fun torment of others and never felt the regret that Thor would often feel.

He was good at these things and never believed that they were bad, that they were wrong.

Because how can something so wrong, feel so right?

In his mind, what feels right, is right and what others think, doesn’t matter.

He is meant to fall, he thinks, meant to be the outcast, the cheat, the traitor and the liar.

*

He is young when he starts to watch the stars.

“Why?” Thor asks him where they lay on the top of the Bifröst, stretched out on their backs and gazing at the vast openness that is the realms.

“Because how will you ever know how small you are, if you do not even know how very many stars there are in comparison to you alone.” Loki responds and it is perhaps the most straightforward answer that Thor will ever get out of his brother.

*

Thor tells him one day.

“I was given the choice between thunder and the vastness of the sea, lightning and the roaring of the waves.” He whispers as they gaze at the sky.

“Why did you not choose the sea and waves?” Loki asks.

Thor grins and his eyes sparkle. “Because thunder and lightning cannot be contained.”

Loki grins at the sky.

Because it makes sense, because thunder and lightning cannot be contained, just as Thor has no desire to be either.

*

When Loki gives Sif the finest ebony strands for her new hair, she frowns at him as she accepts them.

“Wherever did you come by hair so black as night?” She asks, watching the fine strands glitter in her hands.

Loki presents his blood-soaked hands to her and smiles sheepishly. “From the sky, my dear Sif, from the blackest, darkest side of the moon’s sky and then farther beyond.”

Sif wears the hair proudly, beautifully, just as Loki knew she would.

What Loki does not tell is what he gained as well, the seiðr that is not good, that is not pure and light as he is supposed to have; he does not tell what he took for himself, in the smallest, darkest places of the night sky, where he reached the beyond darkness, the beyond blackness of night and ebony bleakness.

He does not say that his seiðr is tainted, is not wholly his now.

He does not say that he enjoys it.

*

Loki knows that Thor is the rightful king, not a good one, never a good one, for all his rash decisions and his impulsive words and ways, but he is the rightful king.

Because Loki is and will always be the brains of their blood, he will always be the calm of their storm and the immovable resolve when all others have had their sanity flee in the chaos that surrounds them.

He will be the decision maker, the one to strategize, the one to plan and choose the next best course of action.

He always will be.

But that does not make him the rightful king.

And that will burn more than any truth.

*

When Loki falls, down, down, down the abyss, he counts the stars.

Because there are stars where he falls, there are stars and there are other worlds and there are realms that he sees.

And when he falls, he does not do so lightly.

He knows how very many places there are to fall and land and be in the cosmos and he is aware of just how small he is; so when he falls, he knows what he is falling into and it’s terrifying.

It’s just not as terrifying as where he lands.

*

Loki has one shining moment of clarity on Midgard.

One stunning moment of truth and fear under the veil of manipulation the chitauri have wrapped his mind in.

He has one thought that paralyzes him for a moment as he drops the cell and watches Thor fall.

What if he doesn’t survive?

But Thor has to survive; he has to live, because in this world, in the next world, beyond that and the next lives they will lead, Thor has to live, because if Thor dies, then Loki’s purpose has died as well.

So the one thing to break through into his manipulated mind is Thor’s demise and it shakes him to the core.

Because Loki does not, in all his life, in all the realms, ever hate Thor.

It is the one truth, in his life of lies, which he acknowledges.

*

Thor has it wrong, on Midgard, when they fight.

Loki sees the destruction he has caused, he sees the madness and the death and the mayhem, but he doesn’t care and that has always been the difference between the two of them.

*

Loki first tells Heimdall that he is alive; though he already suspects he knows.

For all that Loki hides his tricks and traps from everyone; he has never hidden them from Heimdall.

Loki learned from a young age that Heimdall is impossible to hide from, there is no place, no nook or cranny that Heimdall cannot see into, cannot fathom the depths of; and Loki has known this his entire existence.

“What will you do now, that you have the throne, my king?” Heimdall asks, but there is no scorn, no mockery or anger, Heimdall states facts, states them the way they are meant to be known.

Because Heimdall has seen Loki, has seen his tricks and traps since he first started them and he has seen Loki’s motivations, his heart and his intentions and he does not begrudge him.

And because he had rested his faith in Thor a long time ago, Heimdall rests his faith in Loki as well, because Loki’s intentions have never been to hurt Thor in the same way as Odin and Loki knows that makes all the difference.

“Be a good king.” Loki responds and Heimdall’s lips barely twitch into a smile.

Because for all of Loki’s intentions, being king was never one of them.

*

Thor is gone for so long Loki begins to wonder if he will ever return, but he is reminded that mortals have such short life-spans that he will want to spend as much time as he can with his precious Jane.

So Loki takes to the realms and does what he can, parading as an advisor to Odin, and he heals and fixes and mends and makes things whole and new.

He is not changed, no, he still loves chaos, still loves throwing order to the wind and making what he can and will of what he wants, but he has more purpose now and that makes all the difference.

He counts the stars, watches them in the other realms, learns the patterns and finds the places he’s been and finds that he feels smaller and smaller the more he does so.

It is a novel feeling, to be a god and be able to acknowledge that he is still something just a step above mortal.

He finds he doesn’t mind it as much as he thought.

*

Thor finally does find him, as was always inevitable.

He finds Loki on the Bifröst, as was also inevitable.

Thor stares at him for a long time, a very, very long time.

And then he sighs and takes Loki’s hand and squeezes it.

“I would have known if you were truly dead, brother.”

Loki sighs deeply and squeezes back. “I’m aware.”

“Father?” Thor asks, but he is not accusing, simply inquisitive.

“ _Your father_ ,” Loki hisses. “ _Is asleep_.”

They sit in silence for a long time, hands held tightly before Thor finally says. “I know what you’ve been doing in the other realms.”

“And what is it that I’ve been doing?” He asks, not really caring for the answer.

“Being a good king, the king I could never be.” Thor replies and Loki laughs softly.

“I am no king.” He says quietly.

*

When Loki re-meets Thor’s friends of Midgard, they do not take so kindly to him at first.

There is much swearing, throwing of things and half of Stark’s tower is destroyed; on the inside.

The outside looks perfectly intact; the inside like a bomb went off.

After, when they’re all panting and Loki is sitting calmly at the bar, the glass shattered over the entire room that is filled with holes, Thor simply grins and claps Tony on the back.

“Perhaps we have had our differences put aside now?”

Tony narrows his eyes at Loki and takes a sip of scotch, straight from the decanter as all the cabinets were destroyed and the glasses along with them.

“If that’s what you call this mess.” He indicates the room in which they sit, half-walls and no windows. “I’ll need to redesign, reconstruct, everything.”

“Perhaps I can help?” Loki offers, grinning and extending the hand that holds a dagger that has a tie wrapped around the blade and the handle, leading to his wrist, singed and torn into thin threads.

Tony glares for a moment longer before shaking his head, a reluctant grin spreading across his face.

“I still don’t trust you.” He says, gesturing with the decanter.

Loki waves a hand and the decanter appears in it. “Smart move.”

He takes a swig of scotch and grins.

*

Telling the people of Asgard is another matter entirely.

They think of Loki only as the rogue god, the one that has, for his entire existence, tried to sabotage Thor and Odin, the one that tried to destroy their realm.

Sif and the warriors three do not appreciate his resurrection, either.

“He is a traitor.” Sif hisses to Thor and Thor has nothing to say to that.

“But have I not mended your realms?” Loki asks, as innocently as he can fake it. “Have I not tried to right my wrongs, to make amends where they were needed?”

Sif glares at him and stalks over, a blade to Loki’s throat before he can blink and he simply raises an eyebrow at her.

“I may tolerate you for Thor’s sake, but I will not trust you.”

Loki leans down, the blade presses into his throat, a drop of blood easing out of his skin. “No one does, my dear Sif, if they know what’s good for them.”

Sif removes her knife slowly, assessing him as if she’s never seen him before and storms out swiftly.

It is a long time, a truly long time before she tolerates him.

*

He ventures to the alternate worlds, the places he saw when he fell, the universes that the alignment made.

There is another Alfheim, two new Vanheims and a new Midgard.

The Midgard is the most interesting.

Loki hides, walks around and finds that there are versions of the people he calls his allies, friends, as Thor would put them, though they are still wary of him.

So Loki finds these actors, these other people and finds, to his surprise, one of himself.

*

He is light where Loki is dark.

Joyous where Loki is irate.

Forgiving where Loki is spiteful.

Honest where Loki is deceitful.

Loki is not sure what to make of him, but he already finds him… indescribable.

*

Loki watches.

He watches and he watches and he watches.

Thor watches with him once.

“What do you plan to do with him?” Thor asks and Loki raises an eyebrow in question.

“Do you simply plan to watch him for the rest of his mortal life?” Thor expounds and Loki merely shrugs and leans in close to watch the man work.

*

When they first meet, it’s simple really.

Loki wonders why the mortal isn’t shocked, at least surprised.

Instead he sticks out a shaking hand, smiles and says. “My name is Tom.”

Loki, head cocked to the side, grips his hand and the touch is warm, firm and makes Loki’s world tumble and tip on its axis.

He recognizes the feeling as power – as desire.

“My name is Loki.”

Loki isn’t sure what this is but it feels like the start of something remarkable.

*

Loki is often mesmerized by Tom.

Not because of anything he does in particular, but by who he is inherently.

By his morality, his kindness, his loyalty, his intelligence.

Loki loses sleep, he _wants_.

He wants Tom and everything he is, everything he has and he wants, so badly, like nothing he has ever wanted before.

He thinks of what it could be like, what could happen if he were to make that move, those few marked steps to change what they are.

He wonders how Tom would react, if he would accept Loki’s affections, because Loki has never had cause to worry and now, with Tom, he does, because with Tom he wants and he has never wanted what he wants with Tom in his whole existence.

He loses sleep, he loses concentration, and he feels like he’s losing his mind when he sees Tom and he can’t stop thinking about him.

He thinks about the place just behind Tom’s ear that looks kissable, he thinks about the length of his fingers and how they would feel entwined with his, he thinks about the blue of his eyes and how it changes, he thinks about his smile and his laugh and his everything that he finds irresistibly intoxicating.

He can’t handle it and he doesn’t know how anyone can do this, this madness that he feels constantly from _not having_.

But he is drawn, struck by Tom in a way that no other human before ever has.

He doesn’t understand it, but he accepts it for what it is.

*

When Loki finally does make that move, that change to who they are, it is so magnificent that it far overshadows anything he ever imagined.

Because Tom will climb into his lap, will curl around him at night, will hold his hand, will run his fingers through his hair when he walks by, will kiss his temple, will whisper his name in his sleep, will let Loki massage his feet, will read to him, because Loki finds things better in Tom’s voice, will cook his favorite food, will do for him whatever he asks for.

*

Tom finds him on the roof one night.

He lies next to him and slips his hand into Loki’s, squeezes.

“Why do you count them?” Tom asks.

Loki meets his gaze and smiles. “To know that there is more than me out there.”

Tom grins back and squeezes his hand again. “You don’t need the stars for that,” he rolls onto his side and places a hand on his heart. “You have me.”

*

When they do fall into bed together, _finally_ , Loki thinks as he pushes Tom onto the bed, it has been months, so absolutely, bloody long that Loki isn’t sure how his cock hasn’t fallen off.

When he kisses Tom into a moaning, panting mess, he feels triumphant.

When he presses slick fingers into Tom, he feels brilliant.

When he pushes into him, smooth and tight and burning hot, he feels better than he ever has in his entire existence.

He braces over Tom, hands by his head, sweaty hair plastered to his skin and dripping over Tom, Tom has his legs wrapped tightly around Loki, his hands tight in his hair, eyes glazed and mouth kiss-swollen and parted.

“Incredible.” He tells Tom, pressing his lips to Tom’s ear as he thrusts hard, deep, slow, inside him.

Tom groans and drags Loki to his mouth, kissing him with a ferocity that has Loki groaning in response.

*

“Have you ever lied to me?” Tom asks as they lay on the sofa, watching some crap movie that Loki continuously scoffs at.

Loki turns his head, bracing his chin on Tom’s chest and looking back at him.

Tom’s face is open and honest; he really wants to know.

“Yes.” Loki admits, because he has, because he does, because he will do it again.

Tom nods and runs a hand through Loki’s hair. “Was it for a good reason?”

Loki licks his lips and kisses Tom’s chest, where his heart beats hard and fast. “Yes.”

Tom smiles and squeezes the nape of his neck.

*

They fight like it’s an Olympic sport.

Loki often wonders that if they could participate in such a thing, who would win the medal.

Because Tom may not like to fight, he may despise this sort of confrontation, where words are thrown and hit and make them bleed, but he is good at it.

Tom remembers why they fight and why they yell and he makes his points, he is stubborn in the way that Loki has come to admire.

But Loki could potentially win, too.

Because he forgets what they are fighting about, but he remembers what he’s wanted to fight about.

He remembers what he’s wanted to yell, what he’s wanted to shout at Tom for, what he’s taken offence to.

He usually forgets what they are actually supposed to be fighting about, but that doesn’t matter.

Not when he remembers every gory, painful, suffocating moment that has made him angry or bewildered or broken.

And he never forgets to tell Tom, no, because what’s the point of a grudge if you never get to see the effects of it when it’s used.

He hates those times a little bit, but he knows he wins those arguments when he uses them correctly, because he can’t control himself all the time, no matter how much he wants to, and Tom, he’s one of the easiest targets there is.

Because at the heart of it, the base and bottom of it, Loki is a manipulative god and no matter how much he loves Tom, needs him and wants him, he will draw his baser instincts out when he needs to.

*

“Can I ask you something?” Tom murmurs.

Pepper raises her eyebrows in question and nods, waiting patiently for Tom to speak.

“I know everyone thinks that I’m the one with the infinite patience, with the gift to tolerate him, but I want to know,” he takes a deep breath and meets her eyes steadily. “I want to know how you do it, how you stay with Tony, knowing he’s out there risking his life. How do you do it?”

Pepper sighs and looks out the window, where Tony and Loki are fighting, twisting and spinning in the air.

“I will tell you this,” she says slowly, straightening her skirt. “I have felt a lot of things while with Tony,” she sighs and cocks her head slightly, eyes squinted as she stared out the window. “But I have always, always felt grateful.”

He furrowed his brow, confused. “Grateful?”

She meets his eyes and smiles slightly, the quirk of one side of her mouth. “I am always grateful, every time he comes back, maybe not in one piece, maybe not entirely in the right mind, but he comes back and I can only be grateful for that.”

Tom frowns slightly and takes a deep breath.

“And you?” She asks, drawing Tom’s attention to her. “How do you do it?”

Tom chews on his bottom lip for a moment, thinking.

How does he do it?

“Honestly?” Tom murmurs and when he looks at her, his eyes are a little lost, a touch afraid. “I’m still not sure.”

He gets up and walks away, feeling as blind as he’s ever felt.

*

“I don’t,” Tom trails off, takes a deep breath and meets Loki’s eyes. “I don’t hate you.”

“You said that, Thomas,” Loki says back, eyes fierce. “You said it and you always tell the truth, always.”

“I know what I said, but Loki, sometimes, the things we say when we’re angry, over the absolute moon, angry, we don’t mean,” he meets Loki’s eyes steadily. “You know that as well as I do.”

“Then why say them at all?” Loki spits out, angry, hurt, and, he will admit, a bit afraid.

Because how many other things has Tom said that he didn’t mean, how many other things has he said that were lies or less than the truth.

“Because we have to get it out sometimes, you know that.” Tom explains and Loki runs his hands through his hair in frustration.

“What else, then, what else don’t you mean, surely not—” And Loki can’t even bring himself to finish the sentence because, surely not, surely not those words, the ones that make Loki hyperventilate every time he hears them, please not—

“Not those,” Tom says, cupping Loki’s face in his hands. “Never those words.”

Loki nods, but if Tom doesn’t hate him, if he lied about those words, then it wouldn’t hurt him to lie about something as equally important.

Except for that tiny fact, that one that means everything to Loki.

The thing is, the thing is, the main difference between them? Beyond the obvious physical traits, beyond the mortal and immortal differences, beyond anything that anyone has ever perceived as different between them?

Tom always tells Loki the truth, even when he doesn’t want it, doesn’t understand it.

Because Tom doesn’t lie; he doesn’t know how to.

*

When they do end it, it is an angry, rage-fueled thing with shouting and yelling and small explosions when Loki can’t contain his seiðr.

“Just go!” Tom shouts and Loki does, with one last explosion of a vase that shatters and leaves shards of glass embedded in the walls and on the sofa, Tom covered in water and singed petals.

Tom shakes for a heartbeat longer and then collapses, unsure as to what they were even fighting about.

*

Thor comes to Tom, a month after it’s over.

“He’s miserable.” Thor says, pleading.

Tom stares for a moment before shrugging. “I really can’t help you.”

Darcy comes a week later.

“Please, Tom, he’s driving everyone insane.” Darcy begs.

Tom licks his lips and takes a sip of tea. “Not my problem.”

Then it’s Tony, Steve, Bruce, Pepper, even Clint.

Last is Natasha.

She watches him, says nothing for hours, literally, just watches as he moves around the room, making tea, not drinking the tea, turning on the telly, turning off the telly, opening a book, tossing the book down in frustration, trying to clean and giving up as soon as he starts.

“What?” He practically shouts at her, hands on his hips to stare at her.

She is leaning against the wall in the living room, arms folded over her chest, face inscrutable.

“Why?” She says simply and his anger and frustration dissipate immediately.

“Why what?” But he already knows what.

“Why did you break up?” She asks, not accusing, not anything, just… asking, curious, wondering.

Tom has no answer and she leaves soon after with a knowing look.

*

“I need your help.” Loki says, two months after it’s over and this is the first time they’ve spoken in that time.

Tom looks up from the newspaper he’s perusing to see Loki standing in front of him, hands behind his back, chin held high, but his body is too tense, too on guard.

Tom lowers the paper and nods. “Okay.”

So Loki asks. “I need a place to stay for a few days,” at Tom’s automatic protest Loki continues hurriedly. “Not to stay, but to have a place to shower, to change, nothing more.”

Tom licks his lips and looks more closely at him.

He’s leaning to the left, favoring his right shoulder and breathing quickly.

Tom nods. “Okay,” he hesitates. “Your old room is, obviously, still available.”

*

Loki sits on the bed and splays a hand over the cold duvet that he hasn’t used in over a year and he wonders how it all went wrong, how it all went to hel and came back broken and lost and so, so fucking wrong.

He spends the next few hours sobbing, clutching tightly to the fabric of a blanket that he thought he’d never have to use again, shoved in his face like a failure.

Tom comes in and soothes him, holds him close.

It’s hard for both of them.

*

Loki didn’t lie to Tom.

He only spends his hours in the flat showering, eating and changing clothes.

Tom would be lying if he said he wasn’t disappointed.

He does of course, only stay for a few days and Tom watches him pack up his few soiled articles of clothing with a blank expression.

He wants him to stay, he does, by the gods he does, but he just… he can’t.

Loki smiles and disappears and Tom closes his eyes and tells himself it’s for the best.

Until the next week Loki shows up and Tom launches himself at him without a second thought.

It’s rough as Loki shoves Tom against the wall, lifts him up and Tom wraps his legs around his waist.

Its perfect as Loki holds him in place with a hand in his hair, his mouth fused to Tom’s lips and his neck and his collarbones.

It’s hard when he takes him, Tom bites so deep into Loki’s shoulder he tastes blood.

And it’s what they need, exactly what they should have done before when they slide down the wall, tangled and sticky and panting.

Tom wraps shaking arms around Loki’s shoulders and sobs.

*

After it’s harder than it ever was before.

After, Loki doesn’t initiate anything.

He doesn’t feel right, not knowing what he did wrong, what they both did wrong, but he has no way to fix it.

There is still trust there, but it’s a bit tainted, a bit broken and muddled in the aftermath.

“What happened?” Loki asks as they eat dinner late one day, after Tom is back from a day of stunt work.

Tom sets down his fork and regards Loki carefully.

“I don’t really know.” He says softly, ruefully.

Neither of them can even recall the reason, but it doesn’t matter because they have trust that needs fixing.

After, Loki never initiates anything.

*

Tom feels guilty.

He knows he shouldn’t, they both did something wrong, there is no way to be in a relationship and have the fault lay on one person, but he still feels the guilt of the break up.

He feels it when Loki hesitates taking his hand.

He feels it when Loki pulls away from kissing him and smiles slightly, looking like he wonders when Tom will tell him to go.

He feels it when Loki turns away after they have sex, his back to Tom.

He feels it and he can’t figure out what to do about it.

*

“Back together, then?” Natasha asks when they visit.

Tom closes the bedroom door behind him quietly and meets her blank stare.

“Yes.” His answer is simple and Natasha lifts an eyebrow.

“Just like that?” She asks and Tom licks his lips and nods. “Why?”

Tom shrugs. “Because it’s hard, but harder without him.”

Because it’s true.

It is hard to be with him, with the fighting and the tantrums and the running away.

But it’s harder without him with the crying and the wondering and the missing.

Her smile is small, but it’s all he needs.

*

Loki never wanted to be a cruel god.

No, he never wanted to, but, well, he doesn’t know, really.

But being a cruel god, being a less merciful god than Thor, is what he does, is who he is.

And, he thinks, he may have never met Tom.

So perhaps being a cruel god isn’t the worst thing he can be, not when it has allowed him to be so in love with Tom he can’t even imagine, can’t even breathe when he thinks about not having Tom, not having everything that he is and everything that he comes with.

Perhaps, if Tom asked him to change, he might.

Because for Tom, he would do anything he asked, but Tom doesn’t ask and so he doesn’t try.

*

Loki falls first.

To the surprise of everyone.

He falls hard, so hard for Tom, so in love with him that it makes him ache unimaginably.

When he tells him, after months of feeling it, after that first kiss, after that first time in bed together, he feels like a tit.

He blurts it out one day, when they’re lying on the Bifrost, looking at the stars.

Loki says. “I’ve fallen in love with you.”

It sounds like an epiphany, but it comes out like a question.

Tom turns to look at him and meets his eyes in the starlight.

“Fallen in love with me?” He laughs softly, stroking Loki’s cheek.

Loki licks his lips. “Yes,” he rolls onto his side and cradles Tom’s face tenderly in his hands. “I believe I have.”

Tom looks at him as if he’s never seen him before and then he grins, that incandescent grin he gets when Loki does something absolutely wonderful and beguiling and human.

He kisses the corner of Loki’s mouth and breathes against his lips. “I believe I’ve fallen in love with you, too.”

*

Loki thinks of the times he’s fallen in his life and he wonders what it feels like for others.

“How does it feel?” Loki asks.

Tom smiles. “As terrifying as I expected.”

And Loki knows what he means, because every time he’s fallen, it has been terrifying, terrifying and awful and spectacular and magnificent and flawlessly blinding.

But this time?

This time it’s worth it, so much more worth it with Tom.

*


End file.
